(Updated at 5:23 p.m.) TOWAMENCIN — Pennsylvania State Police are investigating a set of human remains found Thursday morning in Towamencin near a construction site adjacent to the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

The remains appear to be of a man.A handgun was found nearby.It appears the remains may have been in the wooded area for about a year, according to state police Lt. Paul Gustaitis.

“We found some skeletal remains back there, and it’s the very beginning of the process to try to figure out who it is,” he said.

The remains were found in a muddy field southwest of Sumneytown Pike across from its intersection with the Turnpike entrance by a worker on the nearby turnpike widening project who had taken a break, according to police Sgt. Andrew Skelton.

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“The worker notified his supervisor, who in turn called local police,” and Towamencin police turned over responsibility of the investigation to state police due to the location of the remains on turnpike property, Skelton said.

The person appears to have been wearing Guess jeans, a Ralph Lauren shirt, had extensive dental work and a heart condition that appeared to have required chest surgery, according to state police.

Investigation is ongoing but there are no signs of any criminal activity, he said, as state police and the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office walked through the woods to evaluate the scene. Investigators staged in the parking lot of the nearby Holiday Inn hotel for roughly three hours.Workers on the widening project were directed away from working in the field adjacent to the Turnpike during the investigation.

As part of that investigation, police will evaluate “everything from missing person cases to towed vehicles in the parking lot here, to turnpike incidents, but when you have interstate highways and hotels, there are a lot of transient people,” Skelton said.

Police and the coroner’s office examined the scene until roughly 1:45 p.m. before carrying a body, wrapped in a white sheet, out of the field and loading it into a coroner’s van for transport.

A Holiday Inn employee who declined to be identified said Towamencin police questioned staff there about abandoned vehicles and any long-term room rentals at the hotel before the local department turned the investigation over to state police.

Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact state police at 610-584-1250 or 610-410-7844.

TOWAMENCIN — Pennsylvania State Police are now handling the investigation of skeletal remains found Thursday, according to township Police Chief Tim Dickinson.

A construction worker discovered the remains along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which appear to be human, Dickinson said, west of the Holiday Inn in the 1700 block of Sumneytown Pike.

Towamencin police and Montgomery County detectives responded to the scene, according to Dickinson, and the case was turned over to state police once it was determined the remains were on the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s property — taking it out of Towamencin police’s jurisdiction.